MOTIVATION

With the continued rain and humidity in the valley, pottery making is tenuous at best. Nothing dries, it takes forever for pots to firm up to tool, in other words, the mood is not very festive. As I have mentioned before, music is a great motivator and since Van Halen is not always good for what ails you, I have been listening to  the classical styling's of John Williams, no the other John Williams, the famous guitarist.  A particular favorite of mine is Vivaldi's concerto for lute in D major; have a listen and tell me that it doesn't give you that certain pick up one needs when the weather is dreary and the going is slow.

NUMBER 3046

It seems simple enough, you take a bowl and a somewhat sharp pieces of bamboo or other wood and hand tool a teabowl, but in reality the process is actually one of muscle memory formulas and aesthetic choices honed through years of experience. I have been rather fortunate to have watched several dozen Japanese potters hand tool their chawan and though the fundamentals are about the same, the approach and results can differ drastically. Some potters are after creating crisp, clean kodai while others are looking for a casual and asymmetrical foot to compliment the overall form of the piece. Timing is another sometimes overlooked factor, some prefer the clay rather stiff and others cut the foot while the clay is still quite wet and the process is completed with the smoothing of rough areas with a hera, the fingers and the palms of the hand. Having tried to work this way, I can attest that it really is much more difficult than it looks and maybe after thousands of pieces, the process and the formulas make more sense and are easier to reproduce, maybe number 3046 will be the charm.

Illustrated is Kohyama Yasuhisa working on one of his Shigaraki chawan. The outside diameter of the kodai has been established and he is beginning to remove clay to form the interior of the footring. Though the body of the chawan is close to leather-hard, the foot is still soft and supple enough to cut and form with tool and hand. In the end, the foot is a practical one that suits the form of the bowl well and gives a good sense of lift to the pot; simple, effective and very well practiced.

HANDFUL

Three things that I really like are making teabowls, creating texture and Oribe glaze, so it only makes sense to try to combine the three every chance that I get. Illustrated is a simple wan-gata form, a handful of bowl with a crisp paddled texture and a rich green, lepidolite Oribe glaze. The lip was created not by cutting to shape but rather through a combination of interrupted throwing and the paddling process. I prefer this method as it creates a less contrived appearance and is usually more simpatico with the finished form. The shape was created by throwing a cylinder and then paddling it, the bowl was then expanded out from the inside using a great wood tool that I picked up in Japan. For this shape the concern is that the curve that comes off the foot meets well with the natural curve of the hand and I think I succeeded well with that primary goal and every pot should have at least one goal after all.

"If A equals success, than the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play and Z keeping your mouth shut."  Albert Einstein

PERSUASIVE

I have had a number of conversations about the potter Tsujimura Shiro with collector and internet friends alike. There is a consensus that the pots and the potter gets you there with the piece. That is to say, if there is any objective of art, beauty and craft, Tsujimura is able to draw the viewer into that highly personal conversation that combines the emotional and intellectual read of the pot. I think this comes from an innate, intuitive understanding of how to manipulate the material to a certain height of expressiveness and not backing down when he gets to the very edge of what the clay, glaze and fire can do while staying rooted in function and traditional aesthetics. For me, many of his best works seem like they ran to the very brink of destruction and survived to tell their story. I think this is one of the attributes that makes many pots stand out and Tsujimura walks this pathway better than most.

Illustrated is a wood fired, Shigaraki chawan by Tsujimura Shiro. The form is very simple in design, though its execution is skillfully handled and deceptively complex; the subtly undulating lip has a palpable tautness which culminates in a precariously thin edge that despite the ferocity of the firing, has survived intact adding to the dynamic tension of the piece. The surface is the perfect diaphanous coating of ash streaming down the form which is further punctuated by melted feldspar burst about the surface. The chawan is the perfect blend of form and function that is highly expressive and fully persuasive on every level.

PROVENANCE

Provenance is defined as the origin or source of something, the history of ownership of an object or a valued work of art. The term originates from the French word meaning, "to come from" and that just about sums up what most people desire to know about things, objects that interest them. For many collectors, it seems the provenance adds some legitimacy to the thing and can be of equal importance to the object itself and for others the place where the piece was bought is provenance enough.

I am constantly being asked about or for the provenance of various pots that I post on my blog or that I am selling on my market place at Trocadero. Truth be told, for 95% there is no definitive provenance, someone bought a pot from someone who had bought a pot from someone else or from an auction, flea market, estate sale, tag sale, antique show or another internet website. Basically it boils down to the provenance being somewhat illusive and murky as the pot makes it circuitous route from its place of origin in Japan or Ottawa, the point of origin is about the only  absolute in the equations. Not to lessen the value of modern pots, but let's face it, we aren't dealing with Faberge eggs or Picasso paintings. For those "collectibles" I can understand and even rationalize the insistence on a concrete provenance, with most pots though the best that can be attached to the pot is a guarantee that the particular pot is genuine. 

As I have mentioned previously on my blog, playing detective is a useful skill when trying to track down the sometimes illusive history and provenance of a pot. The large Kohyama mentori vase is a good example where a certain part of the history has been discovered, but the time in between the exhibit in which the pot was photographed and its current residence, over two decades, remains in the shadows. I will concede that having photos from exhibitions like that or pots included in catalogues is about the best, sure fire provenance for most modern pots, excluding of course, exceptionally famous and important pieces. Illustrated is a very fine wood fired Yohen-Shino chaire photographed in front of a picture of itself from an exhibit catalogue, much like a mirror image. The chaire is by Shimaoka Tatsuzo student, Matsuzaki Ken and was fired in his large new wood kiln. The pot was first glazed in a thin wash of Shino which he swiped thick Shino over. The shoulder attracted ash and the introduction of large amounts of charcoal into the kiln created a rich reduction atmosphere which further affected the surface leading to areas of iridescence on the shoulder; the pure white ivory lid just adds a punctuation to the piece. At the end of the day, the picture of the chaire in front of the catalogue definitely defines its origin, but the mystery still remains; what was this piece up to between then and now?

TORNADO IN A TEACUP

Given the weather in our region and elsewhere recently, including some severe flooding through Herkimer County today, I though a somewhat weather related post a bit apropos. Illustrated is a teacup loosely based on the funnel like structure of a tornado thrown in porcelain. This cup and saucer were glazed in Shino and ash and during the firing areas of the piece manifested some rich, black to dusty grey carbon trapping. Having seen a tornado in person in Cleveland, Ohio of all places, the form became of interest to me and over the years I have made a variety of "tornado-ware" including; cups, mugs, pitchers and covered jars in a wide variety of glazes as well as wood, salt and soda fired. The saucer was thrown off the hump and just a bit wonky to try to best match the attitude of the cup, sort of like a hubcap that had been through the effects of a tornado.

"Nature creates ability, luck provides it with opportunity."  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

VARYING APPROACHES

Once upon a time, way back in the 90’s, I was asked to be part of a teapot show, THE TEA PARTY at a Cleveland gallery, now defunct. This allowed me to try out some new forms I was working on, so I made a large black & white slipware tray, cream and sugar, teapot and teacups. In fact, I made 3 full tea sets, one in slipware, one in carved slip and the other in my abstract resist, all three sets finding new homes. Opening night for the Tea Party, what was immediately obvious was how different the participants approach to the same basic idea was. Besides myself, the potters included; Tom Turner, Gail Russell, Bonnie Gordon, Moira Beale and Bob Yost. The range was great from low fire to high fire, porcelain, stoneware and terra cotta, thrown, hand-built and cast. Each person brought their unique skill sets, their personal originality to the “tea table” and the show was all the richer for it.

Before the show, I was familiar with the work of Akron artist, Bob Yost, but when he brought his uniquely hand-built and gas fired pots to the show, I was struck by his approach to clay. The pots were seamed, rolled, folded and quickly assembled reminding me of the old cardboard cut and fold projects. There is a spirited directness and purposeful insight into his pots and the forms are simple, yet animated and filled with personality. His method of glazing only enhanced his directness with clay and his choice of glazes was spot on and allowed the bare clay to be as much as the decoration as is the glazed areas. Illustrated is a teapot and matching cups, hand-built with a carbon trapping feldspar glaze over stoneware. The set is fully functional and wonderfully thought out for use and based on the form, the teapot seems to be in perpetual motion. All in all, a fully functional set that can only add to the experience of anyone’s tea time.

"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation."  Voltaire  (Francois-Marie d'Arouet 1694-1778)

SHIZENYU II

Looking into the interior of some wood fired pots, is like looking into one of the many wonders of the world, albeit, manmade and that is what makes it even more special. For many chawan, the interior becomes the receptacle for natural ash that is flying around the kiln and needs somewhere to land and the rear wall of the bowl acts as a trap in which the ash is caught, builds up and melts into varying hues and thicknesses of glass creating what is known as shizenyu. In this chawan, though most of the entire chawan is covered in glassy ash, the interior speaks about the build up on the walls and the inevitable running into the center of the pot creating a rich, deep olive green bidoro pool. Immediately adjacent to the pool is a slightly lighter region where liquid glaze dripped off the underside of the shelf about the teabowl creating a wonderful effect and adding to the buildup of glass in the mikomi. Be design, innate experience or serendipity, this Iga chawan by Furutani Michio heralds the richness and phenomenal firings that he was so well known for and is still held in great regard by potters and collectors around the world. There are few Shigaraki and Iga potters whose works show such a mastery of clay and flame as did Furutani Michio and this chawan is just another example of both.

DEPRESSING

In the last firing I decided to try to create some pieces that would take advantage of the boiling and turbulent effect created when the Oribe glaze runs into itself and is overloaded with oxide. To that end, one piece, a lid for a jar, was tooled specifically to create a slight depression that would act as a pool for glaze which would run off the large ring knob and back in from the edges. It worked rather well and created a stark contrast from the majority of the pot, where the glaze is a rich, but more monochrome style Oribe glaze. The pooling area is filled with a variety of currents and flows, especially from off the knob where the flow is trying to escape the general outcome of gravity in broad swirls that collide with the glaze incoming from the higher areas of the lid. It reminds me of fancy marbled papers that line the interior of book covers and certainly breaks up the surface of the glaze to rich effect. Though at this point I can encourage the reactions and even affect some visual changes, it is not exactly controllable and if it were, were would the fun be in that?

DETAIL ORIENTED II

Illustrated is a close-up detail of the interior of an Ono Hakuko chawan. The bowl is covered over in a rich and deep Persian blue style glaze that is further complicated by a network of tiny crazes about the surface which gives the pot even more depth and is nearly impossible to gauge the age of the piece. The cut gold leaf foil creates an evocative star-burst pattern on the bowls interior and the specks that you see on the glaze surface is not some defect, but rather tiny bits of gold that have risen to the surface from the foil below. In the right light they sparkle and reflect golden tones and remind one of distant stars in a rich azurite blue sky at dusk.

Though the kinsai, underglaze gold technique originated in China and was used by the pioneering talent, Kato Hajime, Ono studied and perfected this technique while thoroughly making it her own and a signature style. Using cut solid gold leaf foil, she created a number of abstract and geometric pattern as well as more organic and flowing designs based on nature all the while being ever thoughtful of creating a fitting harmony between the form, decoration and glaze. This particular chawan is an excellent example of her marriage of design and form with the sun-burst pattern seemingly radiating outward from the center as well as crashing back into the interior which creates a wonderful sense of constant, even dynamic movement.